Public Open House Thoughts

January 24th, 2008 by Glen Harness | Posted in General Information |

Tonight was the second open house for discussion about the future uses of the Fairgrounds. I along with about 100 others attended the meeting. Here are some thoughts I have about what’s going on:

• Apparently unlike Tuesday night’s meeting, the number of folks there who supported the speedway outnumbered the ones who want to see it go away.
• The consultant who ran the meeting, Rod Markin, stated up front that he was aware that folks wanted to keep the track, but that this meeting was about ideas for future uses, and for anyone who spoke to keep their comments on that topic. Hardly anyone did.
• I think he definitely got the message that there’s support for keeping this track. It’s really not just a race track, it’s part of our heritage.
• There were only a couple of folks who spoke who were not in favor of keeping the track. One guy’s idea was so screwy that he had to be smoking something. His idea was something like a community farm. Yeah, that’s what we need, a commune, dude.
• Sterling Marlin was there, as were two or three council members. I’m disappointed to say that there were no Fair Board members; guess they had better things to do.
• One of the biggest complaints was that, yeah they have a lot of events at the fairgrounds, but no one knows about them. There was apparently little or no notice given about the open houses. Folks either found out about it through this web site, the City Paper story today, or maybe last night’s report on WKRN. I didn’t see any media there tonight, other than Terrel Davis, who I suspect was there more as a private citizen than anything. There certainly isn’t anything about it I can find on the Tennessee State Fair web site.
• Speaking of not knowing about an event, I see that the Fair Board is meeting tomorrow (Thursday, 1/24). This must be a special meeting. If I’d known I’d have asked for the time off from work to go.
• Mr. Markin announced that there would be a web site going live around February 1st to keep citizens abreast of the process. As soon as that site goes live, I’ll have a link to it here.
• He also said that the process was not going to be complete until late June or early July. They’ll be back for another public Open House in April and another in May. The May one will be a little more focused on the possible uses they’ve come up with.
• The most memorable speaker for me was Bill Donoho’s grandson. He said that if his grandfather were still around, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. He got a big round of applause after speaking.

Overall, I think we definitely got the point across that the track is wanted. The local residents who were there seemed placated somewhat when they found out that the cars will have to run mufflers this season.

I’m feeling a little better about the situation right now. That could change in April or May when they present their ideas for the first time to the public.

One thing to keep in mind: any decision by the Fair Board can be contested by any Nashville citizen in court. I’m not sure who would fund that kind of legal battle, but at least it’s an option.